Here’s an interesting literary and language note. The word “Schadenfreude” means to laugh at another’s misfortune. It’s a really cool word. But it’s German. However, there is an English way to express this idea that is much more nuanced. Unfortunately, we have simply forgotten it. This post is to help us remember. It involves the spleen….

Today, my pastor preached on the Tabernacle from Exodus. It reminded me of something else I had been reading, and then things clicked. I remembered that there were two people in history outside of the Bible who had entered the Holy of Holies. I went back home, and this is what I wrote.

Sticks and Stones By J. Caleb Jones Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me? Sticks and stones do shatter bones, but I cannot agree. Who says these tools made equally Accessible to you and me Are harmless, never causing strife— That never do they take a life. Sticks and…

Why Seventy-Seven? There is a famous passage in Matthew about forgiveness. However, I believe most miss a deeper meaning. It says: Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times,…

Small discovery: “There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrub, and he almost deserved it.” What an amazing opening line. It’s funny: both cliche — “there once was was a boy…” — and cheeky, “…and he almost deserved it.” As any good C.S. Lewis fan knows, this is the opening line to The Voyage…

Masterpiece Cakeshop Owner Jack Phillips finds himself in legal trouble once again after he refused to provide a trans-activist with a custom-made lawsuit from his cake shop located in Lakewood, Colorado. “I’m so hurt,” cried Alexxa de Ville with an emotional strength seemingly strong enough to change fundamental principles of American law. “So many people got…

Below is a poem I wrote for a contest. They allow publishing on a personal blog, so I might as well make use of that. It’s about fighting in a relationship, and how that feels, and what you think when it’s happening, and how love sometimes makes things hurt worse, not less, and how ambiguous…

Dusting off an Old Image “Medieval man shared many ignorances with the savage, and some of his beliefs may suggest savage parallels to an anthropologist. But he had not usually reached these beliefs by the same route as the savage.” – The Discarded Image, C.S. Lewis, Page 1. Such begins C.S. Lewis’s book The Discarded…

“AB 2942 moves through the California Assembly, and is set to ban conversion therapy in California.” I read this and was slightly confused, as I knew conversion therapy was already banned in California. I saw many headlines about banning books and censoring the Bible. “That’s a little crazy,” I thought. I wanted to know if this…

A Fantastic Discovery I join Eric Metaxas in proclaiming that the greatest literary discovery in the past century is that of Dr. Michael Ward in his 2010 books The Narnia Code and Planet Narnia. I use the word “discovery” quite literally. It was completely unknown, and it has now opened up an entire world of knowledge…

***Here’s a poem I wrote for the season. No, it’s not autobiographical, and no, it’s not supposed to make any theological or cultural point. It’s mainly just supposed to make you cry as you sip strong eggnog. Any illustrators out there think they could make it into a book for next year? What do you…

Slightly different post today, it’s mostly all media. But to gain traffic on google, maybe I should just write eclipse, eclipse, eclipse a bunch of times. Plus pictures. Eclipse pictures. Awesome pictures. Eclipse. Okay enough of that. So: I am not a photographer. I hardly consider myself an amateur photographer. I mainly consider myself a…